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ROUGH DRAFT'
PARKS HOTEL LOT
Work was begun on the Parks Hotel lot on May 1, 1964. This site being
located on the city map of 1923 as Block 12, Wtf-4 i
It was deemed advisable to re-excavate that area which had been exposed
in 1962 along the East property line immediately adjacent to St. George St. This area
had been excavated by Dr. Hale S. Smith, head of the Department of Anthropology and
Archaeology at Florida State University. His finds being as fellows:
"Sections of the side alk in front of the Parks Hotel were removed and
the foundations for a coquina building'were discovered. The first course of coquina
above the footing was 1.80 feet thick. The shell footing itself extended down 2.50
feet below the first course. A wall of such dimensions was indicative of a large two
story building. The front room of this building had north-south inside dimensions of
18.00 feet. To the south of this room there was an "enclosed" area, that may have been
a loggia, 7.40 wide. The front north-south wall extended further south 4.60 feet. This
may have been part of a step-down garden wall.
"Rocque indicated, at the time he drew his map, that the structure
that was located in this area was a wooden building. It appears that the Rocque
building, which has its front proportions about the same as the coquina structure was
built on the foundations of the excavated building.H
Once the foundations were exposed work continued on exposing the
remaining foundations as the primary objective of the first phase of the excavation.
The exposed foundations showed the dwelling to be of two rooms. The first or front room
facing east being approximately 18 1/2 x 16 1/2 ft. in interior dimensions and the
back or west room 13 ft. deep to 16 1/2 ft. wide. These measurements are approximations
due to the fact that no walls were encountered from which to take distances so all were
taken from foundation material.
(2) Parks(archaeology)-rough draft
It should also be noted that the foundations were set on a shell
oyster
footing of loose shell which in turn rested on sterile soil. This loose/ shell
ranging A. .5 feet in depth with the poured foundation ranging from 1.3 1.5 in depth
except along the front east wall where the foundations reahobed a depth of 2.5 feet. At
the top of this poured foundation were impressions of coquina blocks where the mortar had
remained and a single block was all that remained of the walls except for the foundations
themselves.
Ultimately sections of these foundations were removed and processed
for the recovery of material which would enable us to assign a minimum date for the
structure. The following is a chart of material collected from this processing:
Metal & Misc. European
U spikes Delft 36
5 large nails Rosewell 1745-1760 Salt glazed
U small nails stoneware 7
1 copper plate 'Spenge ware2
1 belt buckle (filigree) Rosewell 1750-1800 Staffordshire 5
U pieces of iron (unidentifiable) Slifare
1 flint chip Cambed y 6
3 brisk fragments Dotted, 5
1 button Marbled 4
3 knife blades Olive jar 18
1 pipe stem Spanish peasant ware 6
Red paste
Mission red film 11
Glass
Green 55
Clear 5
Other 2
2 green bottle necks 1 dating 1730-1770
2 turquoise bottle neck (Patent medicine bottles)
U unidentifiable
Majolica
7 San Luis B/2 1630-2700 ) Smith found in Pensacola
4 San Luis Poly-1650-1700-1715?) '/ (/4 f Ao C.
4 blue-green basin ca. 1800
2 Poebla Poly 1650-1700
This would seem to indicate a date of the latter half of the
l8th century.
/ J.J
Page three--Parks archaeology-rough draft
Also excavated in the S.W. corner of the lot was, a kitchen of coquina
shown on the Rocque map of 1788. thile the northern portion of the kitchen had been
destroyed the south half was still in a good state of preservation. In the N,W,
corner of the kitchen was found the remains of a hearth and within this area a great
deal of charcoal, bone and other material. Sherd finds in this area indicated an English
occupation. However, when the material under the foundations was analyzed a Spanish
occupation was shown to be present. Majolica found under these foundations along with
other Spanish material indicate a time period of 1650-1715.
The north wall of the kitchen had been overlaid with a foundation
wall from the Parks Hotel to the extent that only 50% of it was usabJe., This gave us
approximate dimensions of 15.5 ft. x 19 ft.
Since these excavations exposed almost 2/3 of the lot another trench
/W
was laid down along the north boundary line of the lot. As zst far as actual constructed-
features this trench yielded nothing. A trash pit was excavated and a large quantity
of iron artifacts were taken from it along with two plates in almost whole condition.
This material was of 19th century origin.
We are safely able to say that the structure was built sometime
between 1750 and 1800 with this statement being based on archaeological proof. Turning
to cartography we find additional proof that the house was built between 1750-1788 as
Rocque map of 1788 does not show the structure but the Puente map of 1764 and the map,
Sof 41765 indicates a dwelling on this site.
C
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